Minverva Blogger Project - Crochet Jewellery

For
my March Minerva project I decided to go for something completely
different.It’s a much smaller project
than my others, but I’m really happy with it.

Inspired
by the numerous “statement” necklaces you see everywhere at the moment I
decided to crochet myself one.

I
decided to use the DMC Pearl Cotton size 5, and then had to narrow down the
colours I wanted to use.There are
lots!In the end I picked three that
looked good together (in my opinion!) but that had a high level of
contrast.I wanted each individual
element of the necklace to stand out, so you could see the individual shapes as
well as the overall shape.

Then
I went searching for a motif to use.Again, there are lots, but I finally settled on this one, which I found
on crochet.about.com

I
modified it slightly after playing around with it as I decided I didn’t want
the scalloped edges.I also tried a
couple of different sized crochet hooks and settled on a 2mm one.

For
the larger motifs I made the starting ring, then used rounds 1 to 3 of the
pattern, finishing off with a round of single crochet (US terminology) to
provide a bit of stability to the edges, as I knew I would be inserting the
jump rings into them to link them together.

I
made one large motif in each colour, then 2 small motifs in each colour.The small motifs are just the starting ring
and round 1 of the pattern.

Once
I’d made these motifs I started playing around with a layout, not sure at this
stage if I wanted any more pieces added.I decided not to add any more, as I didn’t want the finished necklace to
be too big.

This
layout looked about perfect to me.

I
used small silver jump rings to join the motifs together, making sure that the
individual pieces wouldn’t flip over during wear.In the photo below you can see where I placed
the jump rings.

I
then used a single jump ring to attach some chain to one side of the necklace
and draped it round my neck so I could work out my desired length.I cut the chain to this length and attached
it to the other side with a jump ring.Then I cut the attached length of chain in half and added a lobster claw
clasp to one cut end and a jump ring to the other.

The
chain, jump rings and clasp are included in the kit.

Further
experimentation led to me making a coordinating bracelet.

For
this I made 3 small motifs in pink and three in jade.The pink ones then had row 2 of the motif
added in blue.

To
join them together I started with a green one and did a single crochet in 8 of
the double crochets in the ring, then picked up a pink/blue motif and did a
single crochet stitch in 16 of the stitches in the outer round.Then going back to a green motif I did single
crochets in 8 of the double crochet stitches.I repeated this until I got to the last pink/blue motif, where I did
single crochets in 36 stitches around the edge.I then worked my way back down the other side with 8 stitches in a green
motif and 16 in a pink/blue one til I got back to where I started from.

After
weaving in the ends I added a single jump ring to one end and a lobster claw
clasp to the other. If you have very
small hands you could permanently join the bracelet into a bangle type
cuff.I can just about slip this over my
hand without unfastening the clasp.

I
can’t wait for the sun to shine so I can put on a nice summery top and wear my
new accessories!

If you'd like to make your own crochet jewellery, you can buy the kit here.